does the straddle really matter that much?

 Putin really deserves the Noble Peace Prize for the restraint he is showing in the Ukraine. he couldve easily bombed and destroyed Kiev into the stone age years ago and ended the war, but he doesnt want to take over the country (or anywhere in europe for that matter). so he sticks to the far eastern 1 5th of the country where most of the Ukrainian citizens all speak Russian and were being persecuted by their own government, and would like nothing better than to have peace with Russia. 

Imagine if the US were at war with Mexico and Russia was giving Mexico arms to use inside the US, i guarantee u the US wouldnt be showing the restraint Putin is showing. Biden is even talking about giving Ukraine nukes. he really wants to see billions of people perish worldwide, and thinks this way Trump wont have a country left to run except for one utterly destroyed and uninhabitable with 95% of its people dying. Ukraine will end up that way too if they dont hurry up and sign a peace agreement. last time Zelensky tried to sign a peace agreement early on in the war by agreeing not to join Nato, the US and Britian demanded they tear up the agreement so it never came into being. 

Instead, the US and Zelensky decided to let millions of Ukrainian citizens be forcibly enscripted and die just to try to make Russia a little bit weaker militarily. 

But u guys dont want to worry about nuclear war you want to hear about poker. And the poker is so good in Dallas i dont want to go hide out in the Upper Peninsula of Mi or in deadwood or Wendover NV to be away from the bombs. because even if i was far away from the bombs, poker likely wouldnt exist in all the chaos anyway. that would be the last thing on anyones mind. so i might as well have died in the initial blast. 

Yeah when lightning brought me back from KS, i still had about 38k left or so. and i built it up a little, and after paying a months rent for a place to stay thru Dec 6th, i still had over 37k left. and now im in the 43,000s so im doing okay. i still have about another 10 days or so left. The 1-2 PLO is beatable for a large amount here, and according to Bill Potts, (who is here in town now) is because of the $10 straddle being done by over 90% of the players UTG. (the only straddle allowed). now i dont think this is the case, i think its just because they play bad and the game would be good even if they dont straddle. its certainly not mandatory. but he disagrees. 

But i do seem to be winning about 10-15k every month here with my short sample size of 3 months. one month of about 16k one month of about 3k and one month of about 8k. Something is causing the large wins. and unlike anyone else in the country there are often as many as 6 tables of 1-2 PLO. where else can u walk into a poker room and find that many PLO tables going along with quite a few NL tables?

ive got an enormous amount of books i took back with me from my mothers house ive had no time to read. ive only finished 2. Also she gave me an old Bible of hers and i promised to read at least 1 chapter each day. ive also got a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle ive never got around to starting because i waste too much time gambling on the computer. though i had a large sized table where im staying thats certainly big enough to hold it. my ACR balance has gone down a little but im still working on the same money i deposited a month ago plus ive withdrawn $50 twice. 

Trip to Kansas to see family

 Lightning and i recently went on a trip to KS to see my mother age 82 and my son age 31. it went well except for a couple of issues near the end, and I will leave it up to him to see if he is willing to discuss those issues. 

while i was there, i lost $1650 playing BJ online at my mothers house. she still does not know about it and likely will not. and since i returned to Dallas, (and id like to fly elsewhere but cant because ive got 22 books on me i took with me from my moms and no room for them in my 2 suitcases) i bought $2500 worth of bitcoin and i was up over $1000 on the bitcoin and now ive lost mostly all of it. i could of easily been about 10k better off had i never went to KS and never played any online BJ. 

my roll has dropped so much (and not because of poker) i am afraid of the PLO swings, so ive been playing NL. and though i finally got out of the hole and $361 ahead in last nights NL 1-2 game and cashed out $1194, i cant win nearly the 10-12k a month i need to grow the roll and cover bills if i dont go back to playing 1-2 PLO instead of 1-2. 

u cannot make nearly the money in NL u can make in PLO. and in NL 1-2 many of the other players are quite good and sit there for a living. this is never the case in PLO. 

if you would like to see video of the KS trip, follow lightning36 on twitter, in which he will link to his videos of me and him. (not to be confused with his print blog). 

i give up. whats the point in winning at least 200-300 a day at poker to cover the bills and have a few k left over each month if u are simply just going to lose it all online playing BJ? thats a terrible habit and no way to stop. 

i am at my hotel, (its the next day and i renewed it for 1 more week online) but i have to switch rooms to a 1 bed instead of a 2 bed because the 2 bed was sold out and its quite a bit cheaper anyway since im here by myself. i didnt think about this when i checked in. the lady working the desk said after she gets a ton of paperwork finished for the next day that she could probably let me do the paperwork and switch rooms at 3am or so so i wont have to deal with it at 11am, (when i might need to sleep). Plus, then ill be free to go to Winco and load up the freezer once i switch rooms, which is the main thing i want to do. its the best grocery store in Dallas and im out of food. 

I am glad i finally got that winstar slot ticket i forgot to cash out off my hands, even though i only got $250 for it when it was for $334. The lady who runs the semi private 5 card PL hilow Omaha game bought it off me. 

and another thing ive got to quit doing is playing in that game. its so much harder to win in it than in regular high only PLO, because it has a much different player pool and also the $10 forced straddle on the button really eats up your chips fast. i lost over 800 tonight and over half was in that game and the last 300 or so in the 1-2 NL once it broke. 

i was very briefly over 43 at one point before i paid for the trip to KS, and now im barely at 35-36k. 

most of it was just the cost of living and all the money wasted on BJ, though ive had a few bad poker sessions lately too. 

and i still need to get into a far less expensive place by the month so i can stop paying sales taxes. but i keep worrying all the time the place wont be as safe if i stay at the hotels i can afford to stay at. they still have indoor rooms, so those hotels arent too bad, they just have more broke and desperate other tenants instead of wealthier people who can afford the nicer hotels. ive wasted so much on hotels in the last few years. 

i need to i guess stick to 1-2-5 PLO high, the one game in Dallas i was winning the most at and could actually at times have 1000 plus nights. you need a few big days to make up for bad days and to fix it so u wont be tempted to play video blackjack on the computer. 

with the 22 books i picked up at my mothers house it would make it very difficult to fly anywhere since they wont fit in my 2 full suitcases, and besides any other city would be harder to win at in poker than Dallas anyway. mainly because it doesnt matter what hours i play in Dallas. i can wake up at 4am and know there are games going that wont break. 

i hope lightning36 publishes his blog soon because im curious to see what he wrote about the trip to KS. im not sure how it works when u read the blog from a phone, but when u do it from the laptop, theres links to others blogs on the right hand side.